An antenna main beam can be repositioned so as to reduce directional interference that is located near the main beam's perimeter. However, canceling directional interference that is within the antenna main beam while maintaining desired signal reception can be difficult. For example, maximum S/N (Signal-to-Noise ratio) and maximum SNIR (Signal to Noise plus Interference ratio) cannot be simultaneously optimized and some power of the desired signal can be sacrificed in order to reduce the interference.
A previously known approach to main beam interference protection uses a cluster of much narrower beams to achieve both reception and cancellation. However, such an approach can use a relatively large (and expensive) antenna to produce the narrower beams, and can be associated with the additional complexity of implementing and processing a cluster of beams and a significant amount of processing to derive the adaptive weighting needed to cancel interference.